Does “Love Conquer All”?

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return”.

Eden Ahbez, “Nature Boy” (song, recorded by Nat King Cole)

I’ve spent my life savings trying to find love, only to become emotionally depleted, bankrupt. If I am honest, I fear that I will never trust again. I have difficulty trusting others when so many have let me down, devaluing and discarding me. I have difficulty trusting myself when I’ve often overstayed my welcome, stripped of dignity and self worth. Oh, how I have loathed myself for fighting solo; Screaming expletives into the dark, throwing punches to my face, with no one there to buffer my fall. I fell alone and I fell hard, over and over and over again.

Those I loved were home, sleeping soundly, their phone silenced, with so much space & distance always growing between us. The distance, infinite, and the destiny unattainable. I could not penetrate their thorny walls no matter the method employed. I only grew embittered, despondent, and even wrathful, at times. Your inability to love me must mean I am unlovable on some level.  Your inability to forgive, rendered me unforgivable. And so I would sit, spending days, weeks, and months running inventory in my mind, meticulously adding up the crimes committed trying to determine if the sentencing had been fair, or did some injustice occur. Even if so, I would never abandon those who I loved. I naively believed that “Love Conquers All”.  I’ve learned through suffering, it does not.

I have been playing solitaire for too long, dancing madly in the darkness, shouting obscenities into vacuous spaces.  I’ve been imploring the darkness to befriend me and have been jolted by the reverberations of my own voice, circling me in laughter and loneliness.  I look around and I see there is no one here.  My mad screams unable to reach you due to the growing vastness created by your endless preoccupation.  It was you that cut off our connection and denied our potential, resulting in disillusionment.  It has left me in constant confusion, scratching my head, wrestling with my own reality.

How does one love so intensely with raw emotion, only to be separated by an ocean a day later?  How does one grow up side by side only to abandon you when confronted over their mistakes?  You point fingers and cast blame for my angry words that have spilled from my mouth in response to your abusive ways.  I have never stonewalled, gaslighted, shift-blamed, or discarded you. Even so, I am the one not sleeping as I plunge into the madness, searching for the reality we shared.  I am sure it exists somewhere, and so I sit, still searching for answers even after you left me long ago. How could it be so easy for you?

And so, I have suffered greatly under the abuse of a Narcissist.  Well, actually two narcissists.  And, it will be my greatest life work to unravel what has been screwed on so tightly and reinforced by their abusive ways.  And yet, I still love both of them, even as they walked out of my life, cutting me along the way.  I cut back in anger, in love, and in desperation. I thought they loved me. I thought they could truly never leave and I played right along, dancing in the fire with them. But, I was different, my intentions were PURE and I truly thought they couldn’t leave. I thought this foolishly because I felt if I couldn’t leave, they couldn’t either. I thought they loved me. I naively believed that “Love Conquers All”. And, it doesn’t.

And, now, I am to blame, for playing their foolish games. I am no match for someone who is able to walk away. They must have never loved me in the first place.

I am still going to believe that “Love Conquers All”, that is, if it actually is love and not ego. I still will have difficulty trusting, but I won’t have difficulty loving. I proved my capacity for love by still loving the two that left, even as they walked away. I’m capable of love. And in my pain, this brings a smile.